Canada's Political Crisis

[Dylan]

since there are many canadians here, most of you should no most of this, but you americans might not, unless you watched John Stewart the other night then you would know a little bit. but i'll get you up to speed.

about two months ago, Canada had a federal election. the way our elections work is there are 308 "constituences (or "ridings")" accross canada represtening a certain amount of the population. in each riding, there are members of the politcal parties. Canadians vote for the person that would best represent that riding. the government is decided by the party with the most Seats (won ridings) in the House of Commons (the parlimentary building). the results of that election are as follows:
(leader in brackets)

Conservative (Stephen Harper) 133
Liberal (Stephane Dion) 77
NDP (Jack Layton) 37
Bloc Quebecois (Gilles Duceppe) 49

in order for the ruling government to do anything, they need a majority government (over half of the seats). this is difficult because there are many parties in Canada. now, the leaders of the 3 opposition parties have formed a "coalition" party which will occupy the majority of the seats in the HoC. by definition, the government of canada is determined by the party with the most seats in the HoC. the reason why this is co controversial is that an election has not determined that the coalition government would have the support of the people.

Stephen Harper asked the Governor General of Canada (the vice-regal representative of Queen Elizabeth II, the country's head of state; has counter-veiling power over all Governments) to suspend parliament until late January in order to avoid a confidence vote in the HoC that would see the Conservative party lose and the coalition party take over parliament.

and also, just in the last few days, Stephane Dion has stepped down as the leader of the liberals (and coalition party) to make room for another guy who will be voted in by the other members of the liberal party... (i still don't understand why the liberals have little confidence in Dion; they voted for him last year at their convention).

i hope that brought everyone up to speed. i think that took me the good part of a half hour to write all that down. now, discuss!

[Nic]

I bet you everyone is too lazy to read all of that.

[Dylan]

^ maybe not everyone, but some people for sure.

please read it....

[yeahyeahsum41]

so do a lotta ppl in canada hate harper

[iemnaiz]

I bet you everyone is too lazy to read all of that.

i read the whole thing, but i can't really be bothered with politics. don't kill me.

[boof]

i read through it all and i think i understand the majority of it...
from what i understood it seems to me to be somewhat of a similar sort of situation that happened here in the 70's...
This is what happened then (tell me if i'm completely on the wrong track with this but i think im right). Here we have two houses, the upper (senate) and the lower (house of representatives) basically for things to be passed they must first be brought up and passed in the house of representatives and then passed in the senate. What happened was that the labour party won the election overall but only gained the majority of seats in the lower house, the opposition (liberal party) had the majority in the upper house. So the elected government was rendered powerless because the opposition was blocking all their motions in the senate so nothing was getting passed. What ended up happening was the governor general (same role as yours in canada) put in a vote of no confidence and dismissed the labour government, therefore instating the opposition as the ruling power despite the peoples having voted for the other party.

I find the fact that parliament/government can be subject to such an occurrence pretty shit to be honest. I honestly don't no anymore about the Canadian situation than what you've written but i know that what occurred here was a result of purposeful manipulation of the situation by the opposing party just so that they could gain ruling power, regardless of whether or not the motions proposed by the government were for the good of the country or not and with absolutely no regard for the peoples vote.

[boof]

EDIT: sorry posting screwed up and double posted my last post. delete this please

[WillySpleen]

i read it all...but i didnt understand most of it

[*Banned*t-j]

Canada rocks.

/thread

[Dylan]

i read through it all and i think i understand the majority of it...
from what i understood it seems to me to be somewhat of a similar sort of situation that happened here in the 70's...
This is what happened then (tell me if i'm completely on the wrong track with this but i think im right). Here we have two houses, the upper (senate) and the lower (house of representatives) basically for things to be passed they must first be brought up and passed in the house of representatives and then passed in the senate. What happened was that the labour party won the election overall but only gained the majority of seats in the lower house, the opposition (liberal party) had the majority in the upper house. So the elected government was rendered powerless because the opposition was blocking all their motions in the senate so nothing was getting passed. What ended up happening was the governor general (same role as yours in canada) put in a vote of no confidence and dismissed the labour government, therefore instating the opposition as the ruling power despite the peoples having voted for the other party.

I find the fact that parliament/government can be subject to such an occurrence pretty shit to be honest. I honestly don't no anymore about the Canadian situation than what you've written but i know that what occurred here was a result of purposeful manipulation of the situation by the opposing party just so that they could gain ruling power, regardless of whether or not the motions proposed by the government were for the good of the country or not and with absolutely no regard for the peoples vote.

yep, thats pretty much what happened.

except that the supporters of this coalition list their main argument that the majority of Canadians didn't vote for Harper. that may be so, but the party who got the most votes was the Conservatives. now the opposition seen a chance to take power and they attacked it. they complain that Harpers government hasn't done anything to help Canadians. that is not true. they've tried many times to pass bills, but the only thing standing in the was was the opposition parties that didn't want to pass their opponents bills. they want to pass their own bills, but without being in power they can't. all the opposition parties want is power. they could help Canadians if the weren't so power hungry.

[Susanne]

I bet you everyone is too lazy to read all of that.

I was too lazy

[Phili]

except that the supporters of this coalition list their main argument that the majority of Canadians didn't vote for Harper. that may be so, but the party who got the most votes was the Conservatives. now the opposition seen a chance to take power and they attacked it. they complain that Harpers government hasn't done anything to help Canadians. that is not true. they've tried many times to pass bills, but the only thing standing in the was was the opposition parties that didn't want to pass their opponents bills. they want to pass their own bills, but without being in power they can't. all the opposition parties want is power. they could help Canadians if the weren't so power hungry.

Bumping a dead thread.

Harper's a dick. My sister goes to school with his kid. I hate what the Conservatives stand for.

The other parties have had the opportunity to take down Harper's government multiple times in the past few years and this is the first time they are actually doing it. The Conservatives are running this country into the ground. YES to a coalition government.

[Dylan]

oooh. too bad the coalition just split!

naw, i don't like harper either, i hate all our political leaders. Canada's parliment is just a big slap fest.

[Phili]

Fuuuuck.

I like Layton. Layton's cool.

[Asho_DirtyPoo]

I hate Harper as much as the next guy (probably more)...but are you fucking kidding me!? Our political leaders were behaving like children!

The Conservatives got voted in.

SHUT THE FUCK UP AND TAKE YOUR PLACE AS OPPOSITION.

Seriously. Why do we fucking claim to have a democracy, and bother with the election processs if we are going to cry and be bitches about the results and try to overturn them? FUCK THAT.

The people spoke. That's how the cookie crumbles.

I'm glad the coalition fell apart (as I knew it would - those 3 parties can't agree on anything, let alone EVERYTHING). Maybe the "majority" of Canadians didn't vote for Harper - but the "majority" sure as fuck didn't vote for a Liberal-led fucking bullshit "coalition" of idiots banding together because they're sore losers.

I didn't vote for Harper - but I also didn't vote for Dion. Why do you think the Conservatives won in the first place? Canada doesn't trust Dion to be their leader. So why in the Hell would they try and make a coalition LED by the man who single-handedly lost the election for the Liberals? Really? REALLY!?!

Ugh.

I know I'm late to the party, and no one cares anymore (and most didn't care in the first place 'cause let's be honest, most Canadians don't even care about Canadian politics, let alone people from other countries), but that's my piece.

[Dylan]

^ well said. i can't really see a potentially good leader of Canada in any of the parties, to be honest with you.

[d4rkst4r]

since there are many canadians here, most of you should no most of this, but you americans might not, unless you watched John Stewart the other night then you would know a little bit. but i'll get you up to speed.

about two months ago, Canada had a federal election. the way our elections work is there are 308 "constituences (or "ridings")" accross canada represtening a certain amount of the population. in each riding, there are members of the politcal parties. Canadians vote for the person that would best represent that riding. the government is decided by the party with the most Seats (won ridings) in the House of Commons (the parlimentary building). the results of that election are as follows:
(leader in brackets)

Conservative (Stephen Harper) 133
Liberal (Stephane Dion) 77
NDP (Jack Layton) 37
Bloc Quebecois (Gilles Duceppe) 49

in order for the ruling government to do anything, they need a majority government (over half of the seats). this is difficult because there are many parties in Canada. now, the leaders of the 3 opposition parties have formed a "coalition" party which will occupy the majority of the seats in the HoC. by definition, the government of canada is determined by the party with the most seats in the HoC. the reason why this is co controversial is that an election has not determined that the coalition government would have the support of the people.

Stephen Harper asked the Governor General of Canada (the vice-regal representative of Queen Elizabeth II, the country's head of state; has counter-veiling power over all Governments) to suspend parliament until late January in order to avoid a confidence vote in the HoC that would see the Conservative party lose and the coalition party take over parliament.

and also, just in the last few days, Stephane Dion has stepped down as the leader of the liberals (and coalition party) to make room for another guy who will be voted in by the other members of the liberal party... (i still don't understand why the liberals have little confidence in Dion; they voted for him last year at their convention).

i hope that brought everyone up to speed. i think that took me the good part of a half hour to write all that down. now, discuss!

actually to correct you, governments can still govern with a minority government, they just need to work with all the other parties, which IMO seems more democratic.

I hate Harper as much as the next guy (probably more)...but are you fucking kidding me!? Our political leaders were behaving like children!

The Conservatives got voted in.

SHUT THE FUCK UP AND TAKE YOUR PLACE AS OPPOSITION.

Seriously. Why do we fucking claim to have a democracy, and bother with the election processs if we are going to cry and be bitches about the results and try to overturn them? FUCK THAT.

The people spoke. That's how the cookie crumbles.

I'm glad the coalition fell apart (as I knew it would - those 3 parties can't agree on anything, let alone EVERYTHING). Maybe the "majority" of Canadians didn't vote for Harper - but the "majority" sure as fuck didn't vote for a Liberal-led fucking bullshit "coalition" of idiots banding together because they're sore losers.

I didn't vote for Harper - but I also didn't vote for Dion. Why do you think the Conservatives won in the first place? Canada doesn't trust Dion to be their leader. So why in the Hell would they try and make a coalition LED by the man who single-handedly lost the election for the Liberals? Really? REALLY!?!

Ugh.

I know I'm late to the party, and no one cares anymore (and most didn't care in the first place 'cause let's be honest, most Canadians don't even care about Canadian politics, let alone people from other countries), but that's my piece.

please stop yelling about shit until you get the facts straight.
first: dont tell others to get in line. i was 18. i voted. my vote counts as much as yours, so dont tell me to stfu or the party i voted for (ndp).
second: coalitions arnt led by 1 "leader", a coalition can only work if everyone in unanimously agrees, so even if there was a coalition, it wouldnt be a dion dictatorship.
third: the ndp, bloc and liberals wanted to form coalition because, take a fucking look at the election results. close your mouth and look at the results for fucks sake, 59% of the people voted. 59!!!!!!, the lowest in canadian federation history. now the conservatives didnt get half of 59% of the vote, they got 28%ish. How the flying fuck is it democratic for one guy who got 28%ish of the vote to have a majority. that moron being harper. explain to me how thats fucking democratic and il stfu.